“The Journal of Wall Grimm” 182: The Tale of Jean Nicolas Valiquette

Thursday Cola took me to a luxury hotel. I didn’t even know where it was because I was hungover and sick, so I slept most of the time during the ride. She had rented a car and brought Gary Oldman (II)’s cat carrier, and I even slept through Gary meowing as we drove. I think she was feeling a little confused and confined. Gary Oldman (II), not Cola. Cola doesn’t ever seem like she gets confused. We spent most of Thursday in the room because I felt like crap, and Cola ordered up soup, crackers, toast, tea, coke, and gingerale throughout the day until I was finally feeling better. The shower in the hotel was incredible and the showerhead had various settings. So I felt good enough to let the massaging setting run on my balls while I sat in the shower and jerked off. That was a nice release. I can’t remember the last time I got laid, but apparently I had sex with Iona this week, I just don’t remember, so it doesn’t really count.

Before Cola went to Iona’s, she had gotten some of my clothes from Howard’s which is when she also got the cat carrier. She got my bathing suit too which is the shorts kind of speedo that Hasty made me get when we went to Boston. We went down to the indoor, heated, possibly Olympic size pool on Friday when I was no longer hungover and my cold was nearly gone. Cola wore a two piece bathing suit. It had a kind of silicone sewn in the breast and ass areas, which gave her the appearance of having more of a figure. I was actually surprised by her waistline, since she is anatomically a guy, it was strange that it was so thin. But she told me that way back when she used to wear a corsette, she made it especially tight in order to make her waist permanently smaller, and it seems to have worked. She will wear a corsette now and then when she’s really dressed up. It seems to me that she’s always dressed up. She said I haven’t seen anything yet.

The bathing suit had one of those skirt type bottoms which concealed the bulge from her male anatomy. She had all waterproof makeup, and a bathing cap with wig hair sewn in so that it would stick out a little. We swam around and went in the sauna and Jacuzzi. At one point we were hanging out on the lawn chairs by the pool and she says, “Now that is hot, Wall Grimm, look at that.” I look and she’s pointing to some European looking guy. I’m like, “don’t point out guys to me, don’t say ‘that’s hot’ and make me look up at a guy.” She told me I should be bisexual because I’m so open. I was like, “nope” no interest in any of that. Then she started going on about how I’ve kissed Pete a couple times and let a guy grope me when I was on ecstasy. I told her that she read the context in my journal and so she should know it has nothing to do with any kind of bisexuality. She asked if I ever had any sexual experience with a guy that I didn’t document in my journal. I said no. She said that I did.

I was like, “What makes you say that?”

“I know there’s something, Wall Grimm. But it wasn’t pleasant.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. But I won’t say it, because then you’ll tell me to fuck off and you know I don’t like that.”

“Well too bad, because I’m telling you to fuck off right now. Just because you read most of my journals, doesn’t mean it’s any of your business.”

“You’re endearing.”

She then went off and came back with two virgin piña coladas. I asked her where she got all the money for the hotel. She said she was a prostitute. I was like, “Really, Cola? No, don’t do that. You don’t have to do that anymore.”

She told me I was a sweet asshole. Sweet that I let her stay with me at Howard’s and went with her to get her stuff from her apartment with her jerk ex-boyfriend, and sweet that I implied I’d help her out so she wouldn’t have to prostitute herself. She said I was an asshole for believing that she’d ever prostitute herself.

Apparently Cola is wealthy. This is something she doesn’t want me to tell anyone else. She comes from a wealthy family in the Berkshires. Cola went to Princeton and Yale and achieved her Master’s by age 22. I asked what she studied, she said “college boys”. So I don’t know what her degrees are in since I didn’t pursue it after that. After she returned home, she started a gallery. Cola is a painter and sculptor. She has her own gallery in the Berkshires and her art sells at extremely high prices. Her artwork has been exhibited in museums all over the world, even including The Louvre. She started the gallery and was able to travel for exhibits and promotion because of her parents’ wealth, but has established herself as renown enough to have her own wealth, independent from her parents. Her name is Jean Nicolas Valiquette, and goes by Nicolas at home and with family, and by Jean Nicolas in the art community.

Two years ago, she left that world because even though she was able to paint and sculpt, which is her passion, she felt it was all a façade. The prestige and elitism, and the circles she was enmeshed in, became meaningless. She’s grateful for her success, but says you can’t really put a price on art. Her gallery is managed by her parents now and she has not created new pieces in the last two years, which has raised the value of everything she’s already created. That wasn’t her intention, she just wanted to live a real life. And she no longer wanted to pretend she was something she’s not. She moved around here to be true to herself, be the woman she always felt she was, no longer having to hide this part of her. She used to only wear women’s lingerie beneath her male clothing, but she moved here and has become a woman through and through. She has no interest in a sex change because she said that God is the greatest artist of them all who never makes artistic mistakes, so she considers her body to be like a Michelangelo in that respect. She only embellishes, but doesn’t change. She has become her own art, as she paints and sculpts herself. It’s what’s inside that matters, in all people. You can’t put a price on people like you can’t put a price on art.

She allows herself a minimal stipend of her wealth per month, and lives only off that amount, which she didn’t reveal, but it’s apparently a scraping by amount even for one person. This of course was after she bought all the women’s clothing and accessories. She says she prefers to live around real people because rich people don’t really understand life or what life is truly all about. And she says that she’s a better man now as a woman than she ever was as a man.

Cola is 32 years old. She says she splurged on me because she likes me and she’s never felt connected like this to anyone before. She’s says I’m her first, true best friend and she felt connected even before she read my journals. She appreciates the honesty and rawness of my existence. And after she said all that, and more, I decided that she has to be one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. She doesn’t like anyone in her new world to know her wealth because she says that people use you when you have money and/or prestige, and relationships are never genuine. But she knows I’m not like that and she trusts me more than she’s ever trusted anyone else.

Anyway…wow.

And now we’ve been back in town since Monday morning when I went directly to Blues Monday. We’ve returned to Howard’s, and I’m back at school and work. I did miss a visit with Bogart on Saturday though, and he actually called me whining about it. Otherwise, this is definitely on my list of top 5 retreats/escapes from life. It was healthy, after I sobered up, and actually rejuvenating, whereas most other times I return feeling depressed, useless, or guilty for one reason or another. And I have Cola to thank for that. C-O-L-A Cola.

My theme song today is “Changes” by David Bowie, because the lyrics remind me of Cola now that I know her story.

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